David Kronke was appointed Mayor of Television after a bloodless coup in 2000. Since then, he has improved infrastructure, championed greater educational opportunities and fought for reforms that have utterly erased corruption and incompetence from the television industry. Since Mr. Kronke has ascended to power, Television is a far better place. Must-Flee TV, T’s and Teases
It’s been a long time since anyone has even bothered to refer to NBC’s Thursday-night lineup as “NBC’s once-indomitable Thursday-night lineup,” but last week, the network managed a new low on the night: It earned the lowest ratings since Nielsen upgraded its ratings service to include People Meters 20 years ago; it also, quite likely, garnered the lowest ratings in the network’s history on the evening.
NBC averaged a paltry 7.14 million viewers on the night, hurt, of course, by the usual low ratings for its sitcoms “Scrubs” and “30 Rock,” but even stalwart “ER” got its hat handed to it by CBS’s “Shark.”
The CW also achieved record lows on that evening, averaging a mere 1.69 million viewers on the evening (to put it in perspective, that’s the equivalent of the entire estimated population of San Diego in the year 2020 watching, but no one else in the country), but, being The CW, that’s to be expected.
*
Who would’ve guessed that “House” has a heart after all? The cast will be touting a T-shirt for sale online at www.housecharitytees.com (don’t bother going to the site now; it won’t go live until Monday, April 23, but I’m posting now because I’ll likely have forgotten all about it by then) benefiting the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
The T’s will read, “Everybody lies,” an early “House”-ism dating back to the show’s pilot. Personally, I think they probably should’ve gone with “Humanity is overrated,” which was actually made into a T-shirt for the cast and crew.
*
A fair argument to get rid of your cell phone: New mobisodes of the nominally animated “Lil’ Hollywood” (not suitable for work, home or, really, anyplace in between), featuring Lil’ Lindsay Lohan hacking a paparazzo to shreds, Lil’ Ashton Kutcher dating Barbara Walters and Lil’ Britney Spears – well, it’s probably best not to describe what happens in the Britney episode.
“Lil’ Hollywood” comes to us courtesy the same guys who made “Lil’ Bush” the first program designed for cell phones to climb the ladder to basic-cable (Comedy Central is producing a half-dozen episodes). While episodes of “Lil’ Bush” were kind of cute, “Lil’ Hollywood” is little more than a series of cheap shots at over-exposed celebrities, jokes you’ve no doubt heard many times before only not likely quite so crudely.
In fact, the only thing that’s funny about it is envisioning the day that Carson Daly’s imdb.com profile is updated to include his stirring performance in an episode here as “Britney’s Hoo-Hoo.” (Starting to get an idea of this thing’s level of sophistication?)
*
OK, now I’m really mad. I’ve already railed about the assorted tedium and indignities rained down upon me at Saturday night’s TV Land Awards. But now I learn that had I managed to get a mere glimpse of this dashing power couple, my night would’ve been exponentially more entertaining. As one commenter notes, “Cheer up, Jimmy. I'm sure that fame was sweet while it lasted, but you had to know all along that Satan would one day collect on that contract.”
Comments
Yet another sign of someone's apocalypse: October Road (the Sanjaya Malakar of TV dramas) beats a fresh episode of ER in total viewers AND among 18- to 49-year-olds.
Posted by: Ellen | April 20, 2007 1:31 PM